India is a long way from San Francisco. Once you reach the Madras airport in India, Razole is still a long way away. I left my home for the airport at 9 PM on Sunday, Nov 23. My flight left at 15 minutes after midnight on Monday Nov 24. The first leg of the flight was from San Francisco to Hong Kong, and it was a 14 hour flight, followed by a 1.5 hour layover.
That flight should have been a very comfortable flight for me, as I had an aisle seat in the emergency aisle, with lots of leg room. But the enemy was out to make the trip as unpleasant as possible. It was like I had a bull's-eye painted on me -- making me a target for everything that could possibly go wrong. First the lady across the aisle stood up and just as she stood, turbulence hit the plane, causing her to fall on top of me, with the full force of her body weight all hitting in one spot -- my right breast. Wow, that hurt! Then through the course of the flight, one person after another seemed to bump and jostle me in unreasonable ways, things that are not normal for sitting on the aisle seat of a flight. For instance, one elderly lady was griping the headrests as she walked down the aisle. When she got to my seat, she accidentally grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled it out. Boy, that hurt!
Shortly after that, they started serving a meal, and somehow they ended up rolling the meal cart into the emergency aisle where I was sitting and about five of the stewards and stewardesses were climbing over me constantly. This one (heavy) steward stepped on my foot 4 times. Then a stewardess rolled the cart over my foot... my toe hurt for hours after that. To make matters worse, I was still on the Atkins diet and had ordered a no-carbohydrate meal. The food they prepared for me was nothing but carbohydrates... potatoes, carrots, noodles, bread, etc. There was nothing on my tray I could eat for any of the meals or snacks they served on the first leg of the flight. I felt I was supposed to stay on the diet for the flight out, and then try to eat as high protein and low carbohydrate as possible in India. (It turned out to be impossible to eat that way in India, but I did not know it at the time of the flight.) I asked the stewardess if I could have a regular meal instead (at least it had some meat and cheese on it, things I can eat) since they made a mistake on my special meal. But I was told that because it was a full flight, the only food I could have was my special order, which I could not eat because they had messed it up. So I was not able to eat anything on the 14 hour flight out.
I began to pray and complain to God about it. I reminded Him how He had promised to take care of me on this trip. I was only 17 hours into it and already I felt pretty "un-taken care of." After that prayer it was like someone threw a switch and I started being taken care of. The lady who had been sitting next to me (the center of three seats) got off at Hong Kong. I moved over to her seat during the 1.5 hour layover so that I would not get bumped as folks boarded the plane. When the man who had her seat arrived, he offered to swap seats with me and allow me to stay in the middle seat for the remaining 4 hour flight to Singapore. This guy was from the UK, in his late 20s and he was very tall. He provided a wonderful shield for me, effectively blocking anyone from falling on me, stepping on me, pulling out hair, etc. When he heard how I had not eaten the entire flight out because of a mess-up with my meals, he complained to the chief steward of the flight on my behalf. There had been a crew change in Hong Kong and the new crew found me some food I could eat from first class. I was very well taken care of (almost pampered) on the leg from Hong Kong to Singapore, a four hour flight.
When I arrived in Singapore, I had a 10.5 hour layover. Vicknesh (who is on the Godspeak staff) lives in Singapore and took me out of the airport for some sightseeing and lunch. He brought two of his friends with him and I had a very nice time in Singapore. Vick also arranged for me to meet with his pastor while I was on my layover to build a bit of a relationship. As it turned out, God had me minister briefly to Vick's friend, a combination of prophetic ministry and pastoral counsel. It was a really nice layover in Singapore.
Then I had a 4-hour flight from Singapore to Chinnai (a.k.a., Madras). Again I had an aisle emergency seat. This time there were only two seats, the window seat and the aisle seat. I looked at the aisle seat and remembered how much I'd been "beaten up" on an aisle seat on the flight out. So I prayed, "Lord, I wish you'd give me the window seat instead." So I sat in it until the person who had been assigned that seat arrived. When he got there, he told me that he'd rather sit in the aisle seat if it was ok with me. Was it OK with me? "Thank you Lord," I prayed silently. The man, an Indian business man who now lived in Singapore, was flying to Chinnai to attend a family wedding. He was in a really good mood and we had a very pleasant discussion. As a result the four-hour flight seemed to take only a few minutes.
I had my first minor trial of faith when I was in the airport waiting for my luggage. Shortly before I had left, a person had sent me a curse by e-mail which included several elements. The first element was that my luggage would be lost. The next element was that I would be violently robbed and bodily injured in the robbery. The next portion of the curse was that I would fall violently sick and not be able to continue the trip. A long time ago, I used to think of curses as mere superstition, before I had encountered some of the power of darkness on various trips. Now I take them more seriously. When I received the curse, I took it to God and He promised me that He would protect me from it. I also shared it with my intercessors and asked them to pray regarding it. Now I was standing there waiting for my luggage to come out .. and it was not coming out. Many of the others from my flight (a very full flight) already had their luggage. But mine was nowhere to be seen. That was the first portion of the curse.. that my luggage would be lost. The longer I stood there waiting, the more I was reminded of the curse. Finally I found myself praying, "God please take care of my luggage."
"Teresa, don't worry. Your luggage is not lost. It will come out last, but it will come out for I have protected it."
I felt relieved. But there was a long delay before the last batch of luggage was unloaded. There were about 15 of us still standing at the carousel waiting for our luggage with no luggage coming out. "Lord," I prayed again, "Please let my bags be there."
"Teresa, I already told you they are there. Why are you praying about this again? Don't you believe Me?"
I felt suitably rebuked and immediately apologized to the Lord. Another eight pieces of luggage came out and then another long delay. There were only a few of us left who did not have our luggage. Another flight had arrived, and some of those passengers were already receiving their luggage.
"Lord, please let it arrive safely..." I began to pray again. Then I interrupted myself and said, "Opps, sorry Lord! You already promised me it would arrive. I just wish it would hurry up and come out." Again I began to think of that curse and asked God one more time, "Lord, you are protecting me from that curse, right?" As if in answer to that, more luggage started coming out of our carousal. Pretty soon it was only me and one other person left, and the other person was taking the bag off the carousal that just came out. My two bags were immediately behind that. My luggage had indeed arrived safely.
By the time I got my luggage and cleared customs, it was 11:30 PM in India on Tuesday November 25 -- or 10 AM Tuesday morning California time. I had left my house at 9 PM on Sunday Nov 23, and had already been traveling for 37 hours with no sleep. It took another 1/2 hour to get to the hotel, where I would be staying for a 19-hour layover before catching a red-eye train to Razole. This was a three star hotel in India, but by western standards, it was not quite so fancy. Even though the room was air conditioned, the bathroom windows did not close and the room was full of mosquitoes. Fortunately, God had instructed me to take a mosquito tent with me. So I set the tent up on the bed, pulled out the travel speakers to convert my walkman CD player into a stereo, put on worship music and climbed into bed.
I expected to fall asleep immediately but found that I was wide awake. My body-clock was still on California time .. and even though it was the middle of the night in India, it was the middle of the day back home. And I was wide awake. So I listened to worship music and prayed.
The Lord's presence seemed to increase in the room. I did not sleep that night, but I had a wonderful time with God. His presence was as strong and as real as at the renewal meetings I used to love to attend in Toronto. I spent some hours shaking under His power and quite a bit more time simply breathing in His nearness and enjoying His presence. Even though I did not sleep, I felt rested from just being before Him. He seems so near and so real. I remember telling Him that I wished I could live this close to Him for the rest of my life.
At one point He showed me an angel standing guard over me with his sword drawn. I felt very safe and protected.
Sharath came back to my room at 10 AM to meet me for breakfast, served in the hotel dining room. I was finally getting sleepy about then, but had to get up to go eat. We finished breakfast at 11 and I went back to my room to take a shower and sleep for a few hours. Our train was to leave at 6 PM and we left for the train station at 5:00 PM.
Sharath had arranged for a taxi to pick us up at the hotel and take us to the train station, but the taxi did not come. I was sitting in the lobby while Sharath was running around checking outside, checking at the desk, etc. I felt anxious and wondered what would happened if we missed the train. I started to get a bit worried but then I was reminded that this was God's trip and He would take care of things. So I prayed, "Lord, this is not my problem, it is Your problem. You take care of it." Immediately after that, a man who was also a guest in the hotel approached us and offered to drive us to the train station since our taxi had not come. God took care of it in an unexpected way.
That was sort of the theme of the whole trip. There was not anything that came up that God did not take care of. None of it was "my problem," it was all "His problem" -- and He handled each one in a way that served to increase my faith.
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